Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Tricky. In ASoIF in general, prophecies don't seem to be set in stone.

However, I feel this one will happen. Maybe it is something to do with the way she fights it that makes it more inevitable, but there is something about the tragedy of Cersei's story that just feels like this is going to happen, and that fact that she knew about it in advance adds to the tragedy.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I think that this prophecy will come true. The question is, Cersei's fate is sealed because of the prophecy or because of her actions to prevent the prophecy?

Cersei: When will I wed the prince?

Maggy: Never. You will wed the king.

For the first time a Lannister becomes Queen Consort so this is good. The fact that this wedding was a failure or that she was obsessed with Rhaegar was Cersei's and Robert's fault.

Cersei: I will be queen, though?Maggy: Aye. Queen you shall be... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.

Cersei believing that this queen is Margaery (it is irrelevant if she is) destroys the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, rearms th Faith and weakens Tommen's rule. She didn't want to share power or her sons attention so she tried to get rid of Margaery. Her choice 100%.

Cersei: Will the king and I have children?

Maggy: Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you. Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds, she said. And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.

It was her choice to have children with her brother and not her husband and also her choice to treat Tyrion the way she did. The results of this will show off when Tyrion allies with Daenerys and share all his knowledge.So any of her actions to prevent the prophecy bring her one step closer to it coming true.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Endymion I Targaryen

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I personally feel like the prophecy won't fully come true, one way or the other, but I don't think that Cersei would be able to shake it off in any event. Her fate is inexorable bound to the prophecy at this point, and every choice she makes draws the "inevitable" closer. The MtF prophecies that have come true so far were all the result of Cersei's direct meddling, with the possible exception of marrying a king rather than a prince. She is almost certainly responsible for Melara's young demise, and she dictated the number of children she ultimately had. We know with certainty that she could have given birth to at least four children, had she not sent Jaime for the moon tea the one time Robert successfully impregnated her.

All of that said, there's the issue of prophecy being notoriously hard to interpret in asoiaf. We have the MtF prophecy from one source: Cersei's memory. No character in the series has a perfect memory, and Cersei may very well be "remembering" details of the prophecy that weren't originally included. Even if it happened exactly the way she remembers it, there's still the problem of interpretation. The prophecy doesn't say that her children will die young, or even within her lifetime. It says that they will have golden crowns (easy guess if they are children of a prince or a king), and golden shrouds (pretty much any CR Lannister in good family standing is going to have a golden shroud upon their death, regardless of age), but neither of those necessarily mean that Cersei's children will predecease her. The implication that her tears would "drown her" due to her grief is compelling, but she could be grieving for many reasons. Similarly, the prophecy doesn't say that Cersei will be supplanted by a younger Queen. It's possible that the "younger, more beautiful" person who will cast Cersei down is just about any female younger than herself at this point since beauty is subjective, and Cersei's looks are notably fading. It's easy to think that a younger female will come to power and knock Cersei off her throne, but perhaps this has already come true. Her obsession with Margaery, and belief that the Tyrell girl was the prophesied "beauty" has resulted in Cersei losing virtually everything she valued. Hency, Margaery's presence has resulted in Cersei being "cast down"... but again, this was Cersei acting to bring an event to fruition because she believed it was inevitable.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I personally feel like the prophecy won't fully come true, one way or the other, but I don't think that Cersei would be able to shake it off in any event. Her fate is inexorable bound to the prophecy at this point, and every choice she makes draws the "inevitable" closer. The MtF prophecies that have come true so far were all the result of Cersei's direct meddling, with the possible exception of marrying a king rather than a prince. She is almost certainly responsible for Melara's young demise, and she dictated the number of children she ultimately had. We know with certainty that she could have given birth to at least four children, had she not sent Jaime for the moon tea the one time Robert successfully impregnated her.

I think this particular prophesy will hold true. Maggy has been right about a lot of minuscule details. We don't know if Cersei would have carried the Robert pregnancy to term if she hadn't had moon tea.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Give Cersei a chance/way to prevent the prophecy from fulfilling, and the Others can prevent/divert all the prophecies that say that a hero will come to save man's world.

Most of the prophecies in ASoIaF have a habit of coming true, but we know, not all:

The Dosh Khaleen leader proclaimed about her son that:

Quote

"As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor glass. Fierce as a storm this prince shall be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name...the prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world."

4

As swift as the wind he rides I think rules this prophecies being about the dragons Dany hatches. Of course, the old woman who made these prophecies could be adding decorations to the things she thought she saw to awe her followers, or these could just be ramblings of a senile woman. But to say that the mild men in the stone tents will fear his name says that she did indeed see something, for she had no reason to guess that Dany will be able to convince her husband to attack Westeros. Also, 'The bells in his hair will sing his coming' tells us that she is looking at a boy, and so it can't be Dany(I don't think Dany is going to marry Jon and make him wear bells)

So was this a prophecy gone astray? Some horrible dark magic on part of Mirri Mazz Durr was involved, and some rampant sinning on part of Khal Drogo and stupidity on part of Daenerys as well, so maybe some of these are the ingredients needed to divert a prophecy. Does the stupid Cersei have some sinner who is well versed in dark magic? No, I don't think the new High Septon qualifies.

Stannis says to Davos that:

Quote

"Ser Cortnay will be dead within a day. Melisandre has seen it in the flames of the future...Melisandre saw another day in her flames as well. A morrow when Renly rode out of the south in his green armor to smash my host beneath the walls of King's Landing. Had I met my brother there, I would have died instead of him."

1

All of this comes to pass, except of Stannis' dying, which was his own self-insert. The morrow that Mel thought was diverted was the one when Garlan donned Renly's green armor and smashed Stannis' host beneath the walls of king's landing. So we know how much of a brain Mel has. But the fact that she said to Stannis that this morrow had been prevented begs the question of whether she has ever encountered such a prophecy, or a case study of one, in her much alluded path to perfection in her profession - her words, not mine. In her sole POV chapter, she tells Jon that the first attack will be on Eastwatch, even though the towers seen are different than in Eastwatch. When Jon asks can they be saved? She says yes. Thinking:

Quote

Else what would be the point of visions?

So disregarding Mel's IQ, we need to concede that there are two things, visions and prophecies.

Throughout ASoIaF, people, especially Dany, have encountered visions of past. Dany, in the House of Undying, even encounters something far more interesting:

Quote

A tall lord with copper-gold skin and silvery hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him.

This one is universally accepted to depict Rhaego had he lived. By this time though, Rhaego is dead and so is Dany's fertility. So this is a morrow 'not going to form'. There is no question of this being a prophecy. But it was a prophecy when the Dosh Khaleen said it.

What Maggy the Frog says is certainly not a vision. It is a prophecy, much of which has come to pass. When considering the rest, we have to take into account two things.

First, this is GRRM that's writing this. And we know how much he likes to misdirect us. In the house of Undying, Dany sees:

Quote

Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amid a cheering crowd. From a stone tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire...mother of dragons...slayer of lies...

We think that this means that Aegon and co will take King's Landing and then Dany proves/slayes him for a lie. While it doesn't talk about Tommen or Myrcella, Maggy's prophecy says that they will die kings and queens. So the straightforward conclusion/storyline springing from this is: Aegon will take King's Landing, Tommen will likely die in the struggle. Then Dany will take away Aegon's support, and he will marry Myrcella, making her queen, to win the Lannisters to his cause, and then at least Myrclla will die. Other scenario is that the Dornishmen will betray Aegon(He will take KL) after hearing about Quentyn's death and marry Myrcella to Trystane Martell and proclaim her queen with the help of the Lannisters, which will ultimately result in her death.

The problem with these narratives is what I pointed out: this is GRRM that's writing this. And if we can guess the above scenarios so easily, he most certainly won't do it. There is the added factor that once Tommen dies, Cersei will do everything in her power to prevent the prophecy. Magic aside, the most logical course for this is to keep Myrcella from being crowned, and to beget another child. In ASOS, Kevan notes how she could still carry a child, so this is an easy way to drive a peg in the path of this prophecy, while keeping Myrcella from being crowned may not be so easy.

The question you pose I think, is the one GRRM is going to exploit in the next two books. But I think, because it is GRRM, that his answer is going to be completely different than we thought.

Or maybe he isn't being able to find this 'shocker' answer, and that is whye TWoW isn't coming out...

Share on other sites

From a literary perspective, it's basically impossible to introduce a prophecy and not follow through with it, but of course there has to be some subversion of the expectation.

On 12/21/2017 at 3:08 AM, oldbus said:

Tricky. In ASoIF in general, prophecies don't seem to be set in stone.

Interested to know which prophecies you feel have been thwarted. Most will say Rhaego, but then I'd just respond by asking them why they're so certain Rhaego is dead, and we all know how that conversation ends. Or rather, how it doesn't.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

There many prophecies in Westeros. Some true, some literal, some not to be taking that way. However, I did learn a few things from them. There are prophecies set in stone and some are not. The Prophecies from Maggy the frog and from the ghost of High Heart are set in stone indeed. Cersey is doomed does not matter what she did, did not do, does or does not do. Amen for that.

I am﻿﻿ beautiful, the most beautiful woman in all ﻿﻿﻿Westeros, Jaime says so, Jaime would never lie to me. ... I should not have done this. I was their queen, but now they' ve seen, they' ve seen, they've seen. I should never have let them see. Gowned and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very ﻿different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little maiden daughters. What have I done?

Cersei II, Dance 65﻿﻿

And then, at that ﻿precise moment, she recalls (actually, the author reminds the reader of) the prophecy...

Quote

There was something in her eyes, stinging, blurring her sight. She could not cry, she would not cry, the worms must never see her weep. Cersei rubbed her eyes with﻿ the heels of her hands. A gust of cold wind made her shiver violently.

And suddenly the hag was there, standing in the crowd with her pendulous teats and her warty greenish skin, leering with the rest, with malice shining from her crusty yellow eyes. "Queen you shall be, " she hissed, "until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold most dear. "

And then there was no stopping the tears. They burned down the queen's cheeks like acid. Cersei gave a sharp cry, covered her nipples with one arm, slid her other hand down to hide her slit, and began to run, shoving her way past the line of Poor Fellows, crouching as she scrambled crab-legged up the hill. Partway up she stumbled and fell, rose, then fell again ten yards farther on. The next thing she knew she was crawling, scrambling uphill on all fours like a dog as the good folks of King's Landing made way for her, laughing and jeering and applauding her.﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Cersei II, Dance 65

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Surely the plot is very unpredictable despite all the prophecies you give to help us...

GRRM: [Laughs] Prophecies are, you know, a double edge sword. You have to handle them very carefully; I mean, they can add depth and interest to a book, but you don’t want to be too literal or too easy... In the Wars of the Roses, that you mentioned, there was one Lord who had been prophesied he would die beneath the walls of a certain castle and he was superstitious at that sort of walls, so he never came anyway near that castle. He stayed thousands of leagues away from that particular castle because of the prophecy. However, he was killed in the first battle of St. Paul de Vence and when they found him dead he was outside of an inn whose sign was the picture of that castle! [Laughs] So you know? That’s the way prophecies come true in unexpected ways. The more you try to avoid them, the more you are making them true, and I make a little fun with that.